BEIJING – Rain pummeled the streets. Traffic was bumper to bumper. People hustled toward the entrances of the Olympic Basketball Gymnasium – or as some of us are calling it, Tiananmen Square Garden.

Except for the continent and the language and the lack of scalpers, it could have been any night at an NBA matchup.

A big game is always a big game. Anywhere. And Sunday night’s basketball tipoff between the United States and China was the first certified rock-star event of these 2008 Olympics.

A decade ago, this was already a basketball-loving nation. An estimated 300 million people play the game. But when the 7-foot-6 Yao Ming joined the NBA in 2002, the nuttiness multiplied. Sunday’s match was being hyped as the Most Watched Game On Earth, Ever. That might have been right. Half of China’s 1.3 billion potential viewers were expected to watch, along with hoops junkies in the United States and all over the planet.

“I expect to be electrified,” the U.S. team’s LeBron James had said beforehand.

Fortunately, James avoided any downed power lines on the way to the arena. And the end result was a 101-70 blowout by the U.S. team. But he was right about the atmosphere inside. Here’s how jazzed up the crowd of 18,000 was: Before the teams took the court for warm-ups, the public address announcer introduced the “technical officials” – the official scorers and statistician. They received a huge roar.

You can guess, then, what happened when the Chinese and American teams rolled out of the locker room tunnel.

“Even bigger than we all thought,” said U.S. guard Dwyane Wade. “When we walked onto the court, there was an unbelievable explosion of noise and it went the whole time from start to finish.”

That was only a slight exaggeration. The noise did not match the decibel level of a loud American college arena or an NBA building during the playoffs. But with President Bush sitting behind the U.S. bench, the big-event vibe was palpable. From the upper-deck cheap seats, there was an almost constant chant: “CHI-NA! (Clap, Clap) CHI-NA! (Clap-Clap)”

“The audience created a great environment for us,” said China forward Zhu Fangyu. “Of course, I saw a gap between us and the USA.”

Uh, yes. You might say that. China’s game has improved, but with only one NBA player on the team, the home team couldn’t cope.

But there were some unforgettable moments. Yao made the game’s first basket to roaring noise. It happened on an unlikely three-point shot – a feat he has accomplished just once in his NBA career, against the Golden State Warriors, in 2003.

Yet as the U.S. team clamped down defensively, the game rapidly devolved. China scored just two points in the first five minutes of the second half to fall behind, 56-39. And that was that. Yao finished with 13 points and made just 3 of 10 field goal attempts.

The real entertainment began, though, at the post-game news conference. That’s when U.S. coach Mike Krzyzewski unloaded some pretty good one-liners on the largely foreign press corps.

For example, a Chinese reporter wondered about the dozen or so American dunks by asking (and I am quoting directly): “Do you think the USA team was showing off a bit too much? About because trying to show the numbers of circus?”

“I don’t know what you mean by `showing off,”‘ Krzyzewski replied.”We took it hard to the basket because China has three 7-footers. If you don’t go in there hard, they’re going to block shots. Don’t confuse `hard’ with `showing off.’ Maybe that’s our language difference or something. Does `hard’ mean `show off’ in your language?”‘

When his answer was translated into Chinese, there was a round of delayed laughter. But the next question was even better. Another Asian reporter wanted to know what Krzyzewski had done with his team “to kill their super-egos.”

“I haven’t had to kill or destroy anything,” Krzyzewski said. “But I’ll be happy to tell them you think they have super egos.”

As for Yao, he made the most spiritual remark of the evening when he came off the floor after the much-ballyhooed game and said of the experience: “It will be a treasure of my memory of my life.”

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